The Hobby
by Fal Catrecon
Summary: Duo learns entirely new information about a friend's hobby, and is thoroughly frightened.


The Hobby  
By Fal Catrecon  
I don't own Gundam Wing, nor made up any of the descriptions.  
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"Each torture is so important. Each can break a spirit in a different way. Most do deal with pain, but there are a few that deal with the mind. I love tortures. I happen to study them as a hobby, and collect these implements. SO many to describe, I don't know where to start."  
  
"Ummm.... that's okay. I don't think..."  
  
"Oh but you must see my collection, Duo. You must!"  
  
O...Okay..."  
  
"These are the boots. They were also called the bootikens or cashielaws. See the wedges? They fitted from the knees to the ankles. The torturer used a large hammer to pound those wedges, making them squish together. The wedges lacerate the flesh and crushes bone, so much so that sometimes the marrow in the bones would be reached and the legs would be rendered useless."  
  
"Ummm... lovely...."  
  
"Isn't it, though? Now here is the garotte. It normally is just a rope that is tightened, kind of like hanging, but the version I have is metal. When you tighten this here, it pulls the neck tighter against this spike here. The spike will separate a person's neck bones, rendering everything below useless. It also pushes the metal collar tighter, effectively choking the victim."  
  
"..."  
  
"What, no comment? Oh well.... This is a ducking stool. An accused witch would be tied to this chair, and 'ducked' into the nearest body of water. If the accused drowned, they would be proclaimed innocent of all charges. If they didn't drown, they would be burned as a witch. While I'm on the subject, burning was a common way of dispatching witches. Supposedly if no body was left, the witch could not come back from the dead."  
  
"Harsh...."  
  
"I suppose... Ah, my favorite! The Iron Maiden. I placed my favorite description of this piece next to it. Let me read it:   
  
'Sharing the room with the rack wheel at the Thurzo was an iron maiden, a metal statue of a woman. This was a great example of this sort of object, a unique construction from one of Germany's greatest clock makers. She had breasts, arms, legs, and two faces, one in front and one in back. The front face was round, with oval eyes that peered down with a look that could be alternately filled with pity and enigmatically amused. The small mouth was finely etched with hair-thin wrinkles. The eyes in the back face were closed, but the mouth was slightly open, as if she was about to whisper something. Long fine blond hair covered her head and came down in two braids over her ears, past her waist. She was dressed in a ballooning dress of worn velvet folded thousands of times, spilling over her feet. Her bare breasts were round and shiny from the generations of furtive schoolchildren who had rubbed them on visits to the museum. Two strands of pearls and a gold necklace with a black stone on the end were draped about her curved swan's neck. She opened from the front... along a seam between her breasts that was invisible when she was closed. The trigger that caused her to open was hidden in the black stone at the end of the gold chain. When the stone was pressed, her hands moved to embrace the person who had set off the hidden mechanism. When she opened, she revealed a hollow interior with sharp iron spikes. Her arms pulled in her victim, and then she closed up, piercing her prey.'  
  
"That is from 'The Blood Countess' by Andrei Codrescu. Such a wonderful description, don't you think?"  
  
"Ummm.... sure!"  
  
"I'm glad you think so. These boards were used for the torture of pressing. A person was placed between them and weights were put on the top board. It is possible for a person to die with this if they did not confess soon enough. The weights, which were normally stones, would break the ribs which would in turn pierce a vital organ. If you survived the actual pressing, you might slowly die later because of the broken ribs."  
  
"..."  
  
"Maybe the next one will interest you. The strappado and squassation. The strappado was where you would hang weights from a victim hung with both their arms and one of their legs tied above. The weights would be hung from the remaining leg. The more weights, the more dislocation. Squassation is where the victim was prepared in the same fashion, just that they were pulled up high, and dropped. Then the torturer would stop the fall right before the weights would touch the ground, normally breaking what ever the weights were tied to."  
  
"Ow."  
  
"I guess that would be quite painful. This here is the rack. It's workings were different for different countries, but basically used the same. My version is one of the more painful ones. This still has the basic ropes at each end, where you would tie the victim's arms and legs. You would then slowly crank the rollers, pulling taught the ropes. The tighter you cranked, the more you dislocated. My version has added spikes, so the tighter you crank the rollers, the more the person would also be pressed against the spikes."  
  
"Eeewww..."  
  
"I've never really thought it as gross, just interesting. This is also one of my favorites. This chair is metal covered in metal spikes. A person would be tied to this chair, then the chair would be heated from beneath. The heat helped the spikes pierce the flesh, and the heat would burn the poor victim's skin."  
  
"Again, lovely..."  
  
"I know. It is, is it not? Ah, we are at the toys display case. I call them the toys because they were the smaller instruments, But not any less painful."  
  
"I'll take your word for it."  
  
"Quite. Lets start with the pear. It was shoved into any orifice, where it would be slowly opened, breaking anything that surrounded it. The mouth was the most common, breaking the jaw, but it was also used in the rectum, ripping the skin apart and breaking the pelvis. Thumbscrews were also fun. These little devices were used by slowly tightening spikes into the thumbs, or just slowly tightening two metal plates together with the thumbs in-between. The thumbs would have holes driven through the nails or shattered into pieces. And this is called the Turcas. It's used to tear out the fingernails. Sometimes after this was used, people would poke needles into the exposed underskin."  
  
"Is... Is that all?"  
  
"Hardly. Are you giving up already?"  
  
"Oh! No... I was just wondering...."  
  
"Well, there are still more toys. The spider and the rippers were painful. They were heated red hot, then used to tear off flesh, normally a male's genitals or a woman's breasts. They are just basically pinchers that gained torture names. There is also the shin vice. It is something like the boots, but more like thumbscrews for the shins. A person would take the two metal pieces and put them on either side of the lower leg. You would slowly tighten them, effectively breaking the shin-bone. There is also knotting. A stick would be wound into long hair, where it would be tightened until all the hair is pulled out. This was used mostly for women, but was also effective with long-haired men."  
  
"I'd hate to have that done to my hair...."  
  
"I don't have that worry, mine is not long enough. Ooooo.... The saw! I almost forgot. This was a simple saw, but it was how they used it. The victim was hung by their legs, which were spread. The executioner would saw between the legs, cutting them in half. Because of how they were hanging, the blood rush to their head would keep them conscious enough that the saw would reach mid-torso or mid-chest before they'd pass out or die."  
  
"Ow. Ow. Ow."  
  
"It would be quite painful. Let's see... Ah, impalement. These hunks of wood were blunted spikes driven through a person, usually though the rectum out the mouth. Sometimes they would drive them though the stomach. Vlad gained his nickname the impaler because this was his most favored death sentence. Vlad was one of the greatest kings and torturers ever to walk this earth!"  
  
"Ummm... yeah."  
  
"Do you like my collection?"  
  
"It's pretty extensive.... Covers a lot of the tortures."  
  
"Yes, but do you like it?"  
  
"It doesn't suit my tastes, really, but I'm surprised you like it, Quatre."  
  
"Ah, but they all are so beautiful. I thought you might like it, calling yourself the God of Death and all."  
  
"Ummm... yeah, well thanks for the tour. I gotta go."  
  
"Okay. see you at dinner. Perhaps we can discuss poisons, hm?"  
  
"Umm... sure. Bye!"  
  
"Quatre."  
  
"Yes Trowa?"  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I don't know. I just always wanted to see what type of reaction I'd get if I talked like that. Duo looked funny, did he not?"  
  
"I suppose so." 


End file.
